religious and moral education – Page 4

Pancake Day

We couldn’t let Pancake Day pass without a mention so the children have been finding out a little about what it signifies. The thought of forty days until Easter certainly sparked some interest and discussion as the children realised that this meant forty days until Easter eggs arrived. They did also show some understanding of what pancakes were made of and why we have them.
Watching a pancake race on the Promethean board inspired some to have fun trying out pancake tossing themselves and lots of children told us that they were having pancakes at home tonight so we hope that you all enjoyed Pancake Day.

Dragon Dance

Last week some of the children in the Rainbow Room decided that they wanted to make their own dragon to go on a dragon dance round school. Those who were not under the dragon formed a band to accompany the dragon on his journey.
Here you can see the procession on their way to see Primary 3 and the Primary 1 classes. Primary 3 used our visit to think of “wow” words to describe our dragon dance and had some great ideas. “Magical, sparkly, musical, fantastic, ambitious, bright, colourful, super, huge, wow, loud, wonderful and great” were some of the words they used in their descriptions. Thank you Primary 3 for your super work. We have displayed your drawings and “wow” words beside our paintings.

Polish Christmas

The afternoon children have been learning about Christmas traditions in Poland from Sophie’s Mum who very kindly came in to Nursery to talk to us.
We learned about the twelve dishes at their meal, the empty place at the table for any passing stranger who has nowhere to celebrate Christmas and that they eat fish not turkey for their Christmas meal. Santa visits Poland too but when Sophie’s Mum was a little girl in Poland she could not open her parcels until they had had their meal and that did not happen until they had seen the Bethlehem star in the sky.
We were able to taste the nativity wafers that they have on Christmas Eve as Sophie’s family still send them from Poland. We loved the tradition that they break a wafer with someone and apologise for anything wrong they have done or said towards that person before wishing them a happy Christmas.
Thank you so much to Sophie’s Mum for helping us all to learn about Christmas in Poland. It was very interesting to find out what the similarities and differences are between a Polish and a Scottish Christmas.

We learned lots about Christmas in Poland.

Nativity

Two of our families have enjoyed our comments and photos on the nativity story:

“Some great opinions from the class.”

“Carmen and Logan look great dressed up as Mary and Joseph. She couldn’t wait to tell me. She said I had the best day ever at nursery mum I got to dress up. You made a little girl very happy. It’s the first thing she does when she comes home. She runs upstairs off with the nursery clothes and on with the princess dress or fairy dress.”

We hope that the children have developed some understanding that Christmas is not just about Santa. There have certainly shown in their play and discussions that they are aware of the nativity story.

The Story Of The Nativity

Last week’s story of the nativity has made an impression on the children. As you can see, some of them have been recreating the story through role play and some are able to talk about it. Some of their ideas may not all be exactly how we told the story but you can see that they have understood much of the detail.

Brogan: baby Jesus slept in the hay. A queen came to see him.
Archie: well what happened was this … they couldn’t find a hotel so they had to go to a farm. A king came to see him.
Ava V.: there were wise old kings in the story.
Bethany: Jesus had a manger not a cot. Mary is his Mummy.
Sophie S.: Joseph was the Daddy. Mary was the Mum.
Zachary: Jesus was in the story and three wise men.
Riley: Jesus got born in the hay.
Freya: Jesus’ Mummy was Mary.
Simon: baby Jesus never found anywhere to sleep. He had to sleep in the hay.
Jayden: he slept in the hay ’cause there was no beds for him.
Amy-Leigh: baby Jesus was born on his birthday.

Christmas Fever

Christmas is officially the talk of Nursery as the children are beginning to get more excited with tales of trees going up at home, letters to Santa and visits to see him at various places.
We have talked about the story of the nativity this week and hopefully the children are beginning to realise that Christmas is not all about Santa. With our calendar orders now complete, lots of children are enjoying making Christmas cards and decorations and there seems to be a sparkling carpet of glitter everywhere we turn.

Harvest Celebrations

Thank you to all those children and their families who kindly donated to the collection for our Harvest celebration. Some of the children are shown below with their donations. We feel sure that all the food will be much appreciated by those involved with Kate’s Kitchen. Many thanks to Rev. McGougan for delivering our donations and for joining us in Nursery for a Harvest celebration.
We also really appreciated your fantastic support on Monday when you provided a wonderful audience for the children. It was a lovely opportunity for us all to gather together to celebrate Harvest and we hope that you enjoyed the children’s performance as much as they seemed to. One of our aims is to develop ‘confident individuals’ and many of our children showed themselves to be exactly that in their performance. Well done boys and girls!
Click on the photos to make them bigger.

Easter Egg Extravaganza

Eggs that had been transformed into bees, policemen, trains, rabbits … glittery eggs and painted eggs … the variety was amazing in our Easter egg display. Here’s a taster of some of the ideas brought in to Nursery. Well done to everyone who made such a fantastic effort – we loved them all.

Bethany’s Dragon Travels to Ireland

Bethany’s family seemed to like her Chinese dragon and commented on her photo:

“Bethany made another Dragon for her Grandparents in Ireland. Her Aunty Sarah was so impressed she used it to inspire her Primary School students in her Afterschool Art Club. So those Dragons certainly have travelled far and near.
A big thankyou to all involved, you’re doing a great job!”

It’s great to hear that Bethany is acting as a Hecklegirth Dragon Ambassador. I wonder if Aunty Sarah’s children’s dragons were as good as yours? Keep up the good work Bethany!